How to Buffer the Family Costs of Project Citizenship Behavior: Investigating the Role of Task Self-Efficacy and Work Meaningfulness

Previous studies have mainly concentrated on the desirable aspects of project citizenship behavior (PCB) but largely ignored its dark sides. We seek to fill in this gap by exploring whether and when PCB would lead to one specific family cost—namely, work interference with family (WIF). Data were collected from a sample of 311 project employees. It was found that PCB was positively related with time-, strain-, and behavior-based WIF only when project employees possessed low levels of task self-efficacy or work meaningfulness. The theoretical and practical implications for project management are also discussed.